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Sunday, December 30, 2018

Book reviews often get a lot more hits than regular posts, so I thought I would list what I thought was the best of 2018.Fiction:

Seth Dickinson, The Traitor Baru Cormorant. Here was my review. Very cool political novel in the Fantasy/Sci Fi genre. I just ordered the sequel.

--Honorable mention: I was introduced to the Vorkosigan sci fi novels written by Lois McMaster Bujold. I am thoroughly addicted and read six of them this year. Witty and smart books. Miles Vorkosigan is such a great character.

Academic Non-Fiction:
Lars Schoultz, In Their Own Best Interest: A History of the U.S. Effort to Improve Latin Americans. Here is my review. I am a sucker for a well-told and deeply researched analysis of U.S.-Latin American relations, a topic that has fascinated me now for 25+ years.Popular Non-Fiction:
Eli Saslow, Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist. Here is my review. Great memoir. It is a reminder that higher education serves a real purpose beyond just getting people jobs. Even outside the classroom, universities and colleges bring young people together in ways they often have never experienced before. That is also a reminder of one disadvantage of online learning.Movie:
I don't review movies on the blog (in large part because I see so few) but I want to plug They Shall Not Grow Old, a documentary of World War I by Peter Jackson. Over years he restored, slowed down, and colorized old BBC film reels, then used original oral histories of veterans taken in the 1960s and 1970s. It humanizes that war, which we know through speedy, jerky black and white film. These were young boys and you can see the fear on their faces, the horrors of everyday living, and the terror of war. Two hours go by in a blink. Make sure to stay after for the post-credits part about how they made the film.